


The Book Left Behind

by completelyhopeless



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Community: comment_fic, F/M, Not Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, Post-Avengers (2012), starts angsty ends cracky, they all think phil is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 14:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2696909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completelyhopeless/pseuds/completelyhopeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Battle of New York, a book is found in Coulson's things. Tony becomes obsessed with finding who Coulson wrote it for. Pepper tries to contain the situation.</p><p>Phil has to deal with the whole book thing when it turns out he's alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Book Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scribblemyname](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/gifts).



> For the prompt: _[any, any, the journal she/he left behind was clearly written to someone but no one knows who](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/542613.html?thread=77042325#t77042325)_
> 
> I don't like doing death fics, but I had a way around this because Phil lives. Still, when everyone thinks he's dead, it works.
> 
> This was a normal fic until the last part. Then the crack snuck in. Sorry.

* * *

“Tony, what are you doing?” Pepper asked, trying to understand why he was ripping apart a book. Everything had been different since the aliens, since he almost died, since Phil _did_ die, but she'd never seen him like this before. He'd never had much use for books. He preferred to do everything with his computers. Still, tearing apart books wasn't like him.

“I'm trying to get these pages so that they'll scan properly. I want to do an analysis of the writing and get it compared to events and places and narrow down the field a bit—”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, Tony, you do not get to do that. That book was Phil's. We may not know who he left it to, but you are not destroying it and—”

“We don't know who he wrote it for, but I am going to find out. If it's that cellist, then she deserves to have this. If he was harboring some secret repressed feelings for another agent or was still in the closet, they still deserve to know, don't they? It's...” Tony trailed off, shaking his head. “I couldn't do anything for him. I have suits that make me almost invincible, but I couldn't help Coulson. Couldn't protect him. Wasn't even _there.”_

“I thought you were mad at him for going after Loki alone.”

“I am,” Tony almost shouted. “It was dumb and stupid and we were supposed to handle that. He should have waited. We could have done something. Now... now this is the only thing I can do, Pepper, and I have to do it. I'm not giving that book back to Fury. He won't let it see the light of day, and that is unacceptable. This book... Whoever he wrote it for, they should have it. Because it _mattered._ It mattered to Phil.”

Pepper nodded, sighing. She would rather the book have been one that had a dedication or that someone close to Phil could have identified it for them, told them who to give it to, but no one had known. Coulson had no family, just friends at S.H.I.E.L.D and the Avengers, and everyone's first instinct had been to give the book to the cellist he'd been seeing, but Pepper wasn't the first to notice that the book went back before Phil started dating that woman.

It must not have been meant for her.

“Tony,” she said, trying to be gentle. “The book could have been meant for someone in his family, someone that was already dead. It was his own way of grieving or keeping them with him.”

“I know. That's why I am going to have this book analyzed until we know who it was meant for and why he wrote it and when I have those answers, then I'll leave it alone. Promise, Pepper.”

She sighed, giving in for now.

* * *

“Tony is obsessed with finding out who that book was for,” Pepper began, and Natasha looked at her, waiting. She hadn't wanted to come, hadn't wanted to bring Clint with her, but Pepper had almost begged her, and Clint wanted to be anywhere but S.H.I.E.L.D. in case they did decide to lock him away for what he'd done after Loki. They'd already put him through enough tests when Natasha broke the tech's arm and told him to leave Clint alone.

He hadn't said much, and she didn't think this would help. Clint blamed himself for Coulson's death even if that was Loki and Loki alone.

“None of us knew that Coulson had a journal.”

“It would have been stolen and leaked years ago if we knew,” Clint agreed. “Between me and May, we would have made it public knowledge.”

Natasha folded her arms over her chest. “We already read enough to tell you that it wasn't meant for either of us or that cellist.”

“Still don't understand him and the cellist,” Clint said, shaking his head. He shrugged. “Coulson was a pretty private guy. Everyone knows he had a Captain America collection. I think that's about all that everyone knows about him. No personal details.”

Pepper put a hand to her head, rubbing her temple. “Tony scanned the whole thing into the computer. He's had J.A.R.V.I.S. running tests on it ever since, but I don't know what this will do to him if he can't find the person who should have this book. I don't—he hasn't been the same since he went in that wormhole and I don't—We've already lost enough. I don't want to lose Tony because he can't accept losing Phil.”

Clint looked at Natasha. She nodded, letting out a breath. “We might be able to do something with Stark's results.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

“Stark.”

Tony's head jerked up and he looked around the room. His eyes went to the desk and the glass. “I didn't think I'd had that much to drink, but I don't believe in ghosts. Well, no, I believe in the kind of ghosts that come in sheets on Halloween and underneath the sheet is a hot naked woman—”

“I'm not dead,” Coulson said. “It is pretty complicated, but they managed to get me back. I'm told you had something of mine.”

“Right. For the record, I wasn't the one that ruined your Captain America cards.”

“That was Fury. I know. He gave me a car to make up for it,” Coulson said. “I'd like the book back, Stark. That was rather personal, and I never meant for anyone to find it.”

“Like hell you didn't,” Tony snorted. “You wrote that for someone. It was always something they were meant to hear. You were just too damn scared to tell them what you needed to say.”

“It wasn't just that,” Coulson said. “They weren't ready to hear it. Some people can't see past what's inside themselves to accept that someone on the outside can care about them even with that darkness there. Some of us know a thing or two about waiting for someone to be ready.”

“That a hint about me and Pepper? About her waiting until I was ready to grow up?”

“Could be. Could be a comment about Barton and Romanoff and her need to fix the red in her ledger. Could be about Maria and someone having the patience to get through her walls. Could be any of a hundred people I've known over the years.”

Tony nodded. “Makes sense. It's crap, but it makes sense. Here's what I know: everything in your life can change in an instant. You're on top of the world and then you get kidnapped by terrorists, have shrapnel in your heart, and your father figure betrays you. The thing keeping you alive is killing you. Or, in your case, you get stabbed through the heart by a psychotic would-be god. Give the woman the damn book.”

Coulson shook his head. “She's not ready for it.”

“I'm not giving it back unless you promise to give it to her.”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“You want me to get the Hulk?”

* * *

“You know that Fury can't bring you back twice, so if I do kill you, you'll stay dead this time.”

Phil frowned, looking up at his doorway. “May, I thought you were flying the plane. We're supposed to land in—”

The book landed on his desk with a loud thump. A few inches over, and it would have taken his head off on the way down. “You were never going to tell me, were you?”

“Where did you get that?” Phil had no choice but to bring the book on the Bus. Anywhere he wasn't close to was a target for Stark, who still wouldn't leave him alone about it. “That wasn't—”

“Don't say it wasn't for me. I'm not an idiot. I know it was.”

Phil winced. “I—You weren't ready for it, May. You still hated yourself for Bahrain, and I couldn't reach you. I didn't even know I was writing to you at first. I started talking the way we used to talk, but it was on paper. Then, when I did know, I knew I couldn't give it to you. I tried to move on.”

“I noticed. The book has gaps. A lot of them.”

He sighed. “It never took, but I did try. I came close once, but she moved to Portland. I went back to my book.”

“And so when you got me out here, out in the field again, why didn't you give me it then?”

“Couldn't lose you again. Figured the book wouldn't be welcome, didn't want it to be what made me lose you a second time. It was hard enough after Bahrain,” he admitted. He picked up the book and shook his head. “I'm sorry, May.”

“Damn it, Phil,” she muttered, and he braced himself for the hit, but she grabbed hold of him instead, holding him by the tie as she kissed him. He could tell she was still angry, still frustrated, and this was going to leave marks, bruised lips and maybe a lot more. He thought she was making a claim here, and he didn't know that he wanted to stop her.

He also wasn't sure he was awake.

“Didn't know you had a tie-kink,” he whispered when he could get air. Teasing seemed better than trying to acknowledge what had just happened.

“Almost have to have one with you,” she muttered, leaning her head against his chest. “Didn't you ever once think that maybe this was what I _wanted?”_

“Didn't dare. You were out of my league.”

She snorted. “Yeah, right. You'd just refile the paperwork so that the divisions were changed and the leagues were the same.”

“Wouldn't work.”

“It did when I did it.”

“I forgot you were in requisitions,” he said. “I suppose you know all the ways around the red tape.”

“Exactly how many times did you picture me in nothing but red tape?”

He glanced at the book and back at her. “A lot more than I wrote about, that's for sure.”


End file.
